


It follows me at all times and flies when I pursue

by Vampiric_Charms



Series: Burns Most of All [42]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-03 22:03:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10259576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vampiric_Charms/pseuds/Vampiric_Charms
Summary: What do an elite horse trainer and a rough-looking wilderness survival instructor have in common?  Nothing.  No, really, nothing at all.  It’s chance (‘chance’ being a pushy manager with good intentions and a coworker with a bet) who puts them in the same place to begin with, and then fate who decides to keep laughing at them.  Or laugh at justoneof them, until things maybe, possibly, work out.  Also (maybe, possibly) for the best.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was a prompt brought mostly for discussion by GreenAirSheep that I kind of ran with? Well, it came out to just under 10,000 words and I had to break it into two chapters, so that is likely an adequate description. This is actually the very first “modern AU” I have written for anything at all and I have to say, it was super fun. 
> 
> The basic premise: Mairon trains horses on a pretty high level, Melkor ~~is a hermit in the woods~~ teaches wilderness survival camps. They meet very much by chance and things go from there. Aulë and Curumo are involved, as well as a few other familiar “faces”. Not much preamble, it jumps right in with the story.
> 
> Enjoy!

Mairon stood on the large back porch of the house - a house transformed into offices and conference rooms, no longer his place of childhood residence - and stared out across the steep slope of the yard on this side to the mountains beyond.  Early morning sunshine was doing well to fight against the mist that had settled through the forests when he woke hours earlier, but it did nothing for the bluish haze across the mountaintops in the distance.   _A natural wonder_ , he thought to himself, leaning against the railing and sipping at his steaming tea. _Blue mountains_.

He loved his life here, this house and the mountains, the stables and the grounds and the horses.

A car pulling up over the gravel drive echoed through the still morning, cutting across the happy sound of horses being fed.  His time alone was coming to a close soon, he knew, and he held his mug up against his lips, inhaling the scents of jasmine and mint into his lungs.  It mixed with the smells from the large stables just on the other side of the house and he smiled, contented for the moment in his solitude and the solace of the world around him.  _His_ world.

_Peace_.

For the time being, at any rate.  His stature always brought something, and something was always coming.  That something, he was sure, likely had to do with whisperings they’d already gotten wind of just the other day.  Peace was at an end for the day already.

Heavy footsteps landed on the wooden deck nearby (Aulë, then, not Curumo), and Mairon lowered his mug to rest it on the railing, still cupped by his slender hands to stave off the chill left in the morning air.

“You’re here early,” Aulë observed, coming to stop next to him.

It was a needless statement, really, and Mairon didn’t comment.  His eyes remained fixed on the mountains, their bluish hue deepening as the sun continued to rise.  Instead of responding to Aulë’s initial greeting, he asked, “Any more damage overnight?”

Aulë sighed, turning around to lean back against the banister instead, hands deep in the pockets of his jacket.  “Melian,” he said without fight, the name falling forward with an unfortunate weight.  “She emailed me to break her contract, saw it this morning at home.  Didn’t give a reason.”

Something in Mairon’s stomach twisted painfully into a tight little knot, but he kept his face neutral and unmoving under Aulë’s studying gaze.  “Okay.”

“I’m going to call her around eight, Mai,” Aulë said, placating in a way he didn’t have to be.  “It’ll be all right, we’ll figure this out.”  When Mairon still did not respond, Aulë pushed off the railing and turned again, crossing his arms over his chest.  “It is probably just a prod from your competition.  Do you think it might be -”

“When is my first appointment today?”

The interruption cut Aulë’s question off and gave him enough diversion to let it go without argument.  But the expression that came over his face was not one Mairon appreciated, and he raised a suspicious eyebrow at the expanding silence.

“Aulë -”

“I’ve cancelled your appointments for the day,” the older man said, not quite meeting his eyes when Mairon held back a sound of outraged surprise.  “And not just today,” Aulë pressed on, “Curumo and I will cover your week.  You have been under far too much stress lately, Mairon, you need to take some time for yourself - some time away from here.  Spend some time outside, in the mountains you love so much.”

“I spend plenty of time outside!  Look around!”  He gestured widely to the side, emphasizing just how ‘outside’ they were.  “I _work_ outside!  What do you -”

Aulë put his hands on Mairon’s shoulders, the touch gentle and grounding.  Mairon stared up at him, eyes wide as his heart began to thud in his chest.  Leave?  Leave _here_?  But this place was his life, his life’s _work_ , he couldn’t leave, he could never, why would he, how  -

“Mairon.”

He blinked, suddenly realizing he was losing focus into something else.  Aulë gazed down at him, his face warm and golden eyes full of compassion.  “This is exactly why you need to take a step back, just for a few days.  I’ll be here, Curumo will be here, and we’ll take care of it.  We’ll call if we need anything.  And -”  He paused, releasing Mairon’s shoulders to reach into the pocket of his jacket for a folded piece of paper.  He flattened it open, smoothing out the creases, and smiled at it before handing the sheet over.  “We got this for you.  A little gift.  Yeah?”

Mairon took it, casting him another suspicious glance before looking at it.  He frowned.  “Wilderness survival training?”

“Sounds fun, right?” Aulë asked jovially, smiling widely.  “It’s only for three days.  You’ll love it.”

“It starts _today_.”

“Yeah,” Aulë said as though agreeing with a wonderful idea.  He reached out to pluck the cooling mug of tea from Mairon’s hand and tugged on his arm with a gentle nudge to start walking.  “Guess you’d better get going, right?”

xXx

The reviews for this survival camp thing unexpectedly thrust upon him were abysmal.  Mairon had only just had time to look this one up online as he ran home to change - the receipt of payment Aulë had given him also had a short list of rules, including a brief and very vague dress code for being outside all day - and what he’d been able to find about the instructor, named only as Melkor with no surname, did not bode well for what he was about to endure.

He parked in a gravel lot beside a laminated sign, handwritten with block letters denoting “SURVIVAL TRAINING HERE”, and turned his car off with a beleaguered sigh.  There was only one other car nearby, an old-looking Honda; two people were getting out.  They were parked near a wooden fence with an open gate that led to the dense woods beyond.  A well-worn trail cut through the trees into the forest.

He leaned back in his seat and pulled out his phone.  A missed call from Curumo.  He thumbed it open and put in his passcode, listening to the line ringing distantly before putting the phone to his ear.

He answered on the fourth ring, harried and flustered, and Mairon could hear things clattering in the background.  “Yeah, hello?”

“Hey Curumo, it’s me.  Sorry I missed your call earlier.”

“Oh, Mairon, hey!”  There was an obvious change to the tone of his voice, a smile Mairon could almost see brightening his face.  Something else fell to the floor and Mairon held the phone away when the noise rattled loudly.  “Sorry, my arms were full.  We just got the shipment of - well, nevermind, it’s not important.  Nothing breakable, just heavy.  You’re taking the day off, right?  Aulë talked to you?”  

“Um, yeah,” Mairom muttered, trying not to let his irritation come through the on phone.  This whole thing was probably Aulë’s idea, anyway, not Curumo’s.  “He insisted I take this stupid class.  I’m already here, just waiting for things to start.”

Curumo laughed, the sound sweet and familiar across the line.  “I wasn’t sure if you’d actually go,” he admitted, “but I mean, it does look kind of fun?  And maybe you’ll be able to lead camping trips and stuff afterward.  Able to survive in the wild, it’s exciting!  Right?”

Mairon just hummed noncommittally, still not convinced.  “I’m not sure where you’re getting this whole idea of ‘fun’ from, to be frank.”

“Oh, come on!  What,” he wheedled, and Mairon could already pick up on the sly shift to his voice.  “Do you think you won’t be able to do it?  That you’ll fail a _three-day_ wilderness survival class?”

“Shut up.”  Mairon’s ears burned with a shameful blush he could feel creeping up his neck, regardless of how much he knew the barb was a joke.  “I won’t fail this stupid class.  I’ll take you camping when it’s over to prove it.”

Curumo laughed again.  “Fine, you’re on.  It’ll be just like all our other camping trips, I’m sure, only this time you’ll set more things on fire.  I’ll pack extra baking soda.”

“I will not!” he snapped back, retorting with another feeble, “Shut up.”  

There was silence for a minute.  Mairon watched as another car pulled up, a beat-up station wagon, and parked near the Honda.  He could hear Curumo start chuckling gently on the other line before he sombered with a murmured apology.

“Hey, Mai...I’m taking your appointment with Tyelpe this afternoon.”  He sounded anxious all of a sudden, even if whatever question he wanted to ask didn’t actually come, and Mairon gave him his full attention again as the new couple walked past his car to the woods.

“For dressage or to work on jumps?”

The kid’s face popped into his head, smiling and young and happy, and he wondered for the umpteenth time why his grandfather hadn’t taken any input into his not-so-newfound interest in horses, but he shook the thought away.  Everyone at the barn joked it was because he had a crush on Mairon, and so convinced his mother to keep him there instead of moving somewhere else.  Mairon scowled at the reminder.   _Pointless_ , rumors like that.

Curumo had paused as he sought an answer to the question Mairon asked, the sound of pages being flipped in the office so far away coming over the phone.  “You have him down on the schedule to work with the jumps.  Is that...should I reschedule, to have him wait for you?  Or work with him on dressage instead?”

“You can do the jumps with him if you want, Curumo, he’s still just starting.  If you do - he gets timid after the first few, starts to lean back.  You need to remind him to keep leaning forward with the horse.  Got that?  But,” and he hesitated, seeing in his mind what could go wrong with one single class without him and spiraling away from there.  He rallied quickly, coming back to the call where Curumo was waiting.  “But it’s your decision.”

“He trusts you a lot more than me, I don’t know if he’d want to -”

A sleek grey car, far more expensive than the others, pulled up beside Mairon’s in the lot and fully broke his concentration.  The engine cut off abruptly and a man got out, slammed the door, and stalked to the fence near the woods.  “Curumo,” Mairon interrupted as politely as he could.  “I need to go, I think the class is about to start.  But really, it’s up to you today.  Tyelpe enjoys dressage, he won’t mind if you change the plan a little.  I’ll talk you you later.”

“I’ll text you!” Curumo got in just before Mairon hung up.

Mairon slid his phone into his jacket pocket and grabbed a water bottle sitting in the cup holder, and then slowly got out of the car to make his way to the gate.  He pulled his hair back into a loose braid as he went, already losing patience for the day.

It was still chilly under the deep shade of the trees on the path, the early spring weather unpredictable and vacillating so quickly between warm and cold, and Mairon shoved his hands down into his pockets to keep them warm, the water bottle held tightly between his arm and waist.  The path wasn’t terribly long, and after a very short walk the treeline opened again into a lovely field.  A section in the center had been brushed down to dusty dirt and lined with long logs, obviously meant as a place to sit, and five people were already gathered there.  An unlit fire pit was in the middle, the ashes and dark remainders of a fresh fire stark against the greenery and soft brown earth.

Mairon made his way over to the little group of people and lowered himself onto one of the logs, set away from what were obviously two couples.  They seemed to already know each other, lost in conversation.  The fifth man, the one Mairon had watched arrive in the expensive car, appeared to be their teacher; he was crouched on the other side of the unlit fire pit, arranging papers and various tools.  He looked up when Mairon sat, the movement apparently catching his attention, and their eyes met.  Mairon was taken aback by the intensity of that blue stare, but he held it just the same.

“Interesting clothes,” the man - Melkor, according to the information gleaned earlier - said with a smirk.

Mairon frowned at him, refusing to look down at what he was wearing.  Casual wear, clothing he knew would not become uncomfortable as the day warmed.  “Thanks,” was all he said, voice flat.

“You’re certainly expensive, aren’t you,” Melkor goaded again, the smirk still not leaving his face.  Mairon flicked a quick glance to the others and saw them wearing tattered jeans or khakis, people who looked like they’d done all this before, and suddenly realized the labels he had on - and the fact that Melkor recognized them.  He didn’t respond.

The brief idea to leave came and went through his mind.  But Melkor stood, those sharp blue eyes leaving his face to turn on the full group.  Mairon watched him, taking in how tall he was, the broad shoulders, the dark hair, and decided against his better judgement to stay.  

“Sign these,” Melkor said brusquely, handing each person a sheet of paper.  “It’s a safety waiver and an indemnity clause before we can start anything today.”  He tossed pens into the dirt by the logs, which the others grabbed for, but Mairon reached into his pocket and pulled out his own.  He felt Melkor’s eyes on him again but didn’t look up.

The waiver was a rather standard one, releasing Melkor of legal responsibility if someone were injured during his class, but Mairon’s eyebrows came together as he read through the clause at the bottom.  It was very legally worded to keep Melkor out of trouble, almost to a laughable point.

“You gonna sign that or what?”

Mairon glanced up to see Melkor still staring at him.  A brief smile flickered over his face, and he tugged the paper over his thigh to scrawl his name across the bottom.  But then he paused a moment, not handing it back when he was done.  “This what you were after?  Maybe I should read the entire thing more fully first.  You never know what people slip into these.”

Melkor just snatched the paper before Mairon even had a chance to fully hold it up for him, and he felt somewhat vindicated after their exchange earlier.

The phone in Mairon’s pocket buzzed, and he pulled it out.  A text from Curumo.   _We decided on dressage.  He wants you for the jumps._

“Right.”  Melkor gathered all the waivers back together, folding them and shoving them into a pocket of his jacket.  “First things first.  You’ll all probably die anyway if you’re lost out in the wild for more than a few days.”  The two couples glanced at each other, showing the first signs of concern, but Mairon suddenly found himself greatly amused.  He sat up straighter.  “If you’re lucky enough to find yourself alive after whatever horrible incident left you stranded without anything - build a shelter before anything else.  These are the basics of a shelter:  somewhere flat, near water and firewood with a break against the wind, and easily seen by others.  Now go in there -” he pointed over his shoulder to the woods, “and build one using the things in this bag.  There’s rope and a pocket knife in here, and a small tarp.  Off you go.”

The others stood, hovering tentatively in a group together and shooting wary glances around.  “We won’t actually get lost, right?” one of them asked.

“This is my land,” Melkor responded blandly, waving a bored hand in the direction of the rolling forest sprawling up the mountainside.  “I’ll find you.  Just don’t go very far if you want to be found before it gets dark.”

“But...what if we need help?  Like, direction on what to do?”

Melkor and Mairon both looked at the other student, and Melkor raised an annoyed eyebrow.  “The point of this,” he said, “is to throw you into an unknown situation.  I will come by in about an hour to see what you’re doing and give you advice.  Go away now.”

Mairon finally stood to retrieve one of the remaining bags and, surprisingly, found it handed to him.  Melkor smiled at him, a wild thing that exposed bright white teeth and made Mairon hesitate before backing away.  “That hair,” Melkor said, nodding with sparkling eyes, “is a beacon all itself, isn’t it?”

Mairon reached up unconsciously to run a hand over his head and the red hair he’d already pulled back.  It was sunny in the clearing, and the braid resting over his shoulder was bright in the light.  “Does that mean you’ll find me first?”

Melkor shrugged, turning away to plop back down onto one of the vacated logs.  “Means more that I won’t lose you at all.”

“I don’t tend to get lost,” Mairon said, pointedly tugging the hood of his jacket up over his head.

xXx

Mairon’s shelter, at least, was passable with only a few bit of criticism.  The others, he heard as they returned to the clearing a while later, had fared much worse.  One of them was teary-eyed, her partner’s arm over her shoulder as he shot angry looks toward Melkor.  The woman passed the clearing, heading for the trail and, probably, her car.  Her partner scrambled after her a minute later after collecting their things.  Neither returned.

Mairon checked his phone while everyone got themselves settled again and found several more messages from Curumo.  Another client was upset.  He was about to respond, press for more information, when he glanced up to find Melkor watching him with narrowed eyebrows.  He slid his phone away without an apology.

Melkor, for his part in this debacle of leaving students, did not seem to care in the least about a smaller class.  He had gathered a good amount of wood while they’d been away, and it was sorted into three piles by the fire pit.  He crouched there and pulled some things from his pocket.

“Now.  How to start a fire.  In those packs you should still have is some flint.  If regular matches ever get wet or broken, you should probably know how to use it.  And here, this is how you build the base of your fire, with tinder first.”

He went on to explain the use of lighting the tinder and kindling, then slowly building up with larger pieces of wood, until the fire was roaring in front of them.  Mairon watched as best he could.  “Keep this going,” he explained.  “It will keep you warm, obviously, but you’ll also need it for cooking any food and boiling water if you don’t have purification tablets.  No fire means you’ll die.  Okay, your turn.”

Melkor divided the rest of the wood between Mairon and the remaining couple and directed them to other fire pits around the clearing.  Mairon gathered up his things and walked slowly toward one of them, actually nervous for the first time.  He tended to have a bad reputation with fire.  This might be the entire reason Aulë set this up, really, and his lips pursed, Curumo’s words from earlier still in his ears.  A joke, all of it.  The potential pleasantness of the day faded abruptly.

He dropped his supplies on the dusty ground and sat to reach for the necessary tinder.  The directions were fresh in his mind, and he followed them exactly as he gathered the tinder and lit one of the provided matches.  Flames came to life immediately, eating through the ragged brush in the fire pit, and he moved the match to the other side to feed the flame there as well.  It grew quickly, and he blew out the match added small pieces of kindling to the fire as it ate through the tinder.

It seemed to be okay.  Nothing was burning that shouldn’t be burning.  He left out a little huff of relief, not taking his eyes off the fire.

But then - and he wasn’t even sure how it happened, really, just that the universe must _really_ have it out for him when it came to this particular thing, building fires, or fires of any kind - a large bit of flaming tinder lifted up on the currents of smoke.  Mairon watched, agape with a stunned kind of horror, as the bit came back down again without going out like the others did.  It landed on his dry pile of tinder and kindling, and suddenly the entire thing was up in flames.

He leapt back on his knees, reaching for his water bottle, when a thick leather boot smashed down on the fire, stomping it out before it could do more than come to life for a heartbeat.

“I would really appreciate it,” Melkor said softly, “if you did not burn my woods down.”

“I’m sorry!” Mairon quickly replied as Melkor stood aside and rubbed the sole of his boot in the grass to get some of the soot off.  “I just - I don’t know what happened.”

Melkor looked at him.  Mairon readied himself for an onslaught of bitter, angry words, already preparing his own angry retort, but when he glanced up again, Melkor had an odd little grin pulling at his lips.  “How about,” he murmured, “you make the shelters and I’ll handle the fires.  If we ever go camping together.”

“Yeah.”  Mairon nodded, too put off by the fading adrenaline of the literal flaming disaster to have a quick quip ready for that.  He ran a hand over his hair in an attempt to quell his nerves.  “Yeah, sure.”

Melkor regarded him for a moment, his gaze searching Mairon’s face for something he couldn’t seem to find.  “Why are you here?”

This question took him fully off guard, and he frowned, feeling the ache in his knees from the awkward kneeling position he was still in.  He dropped to a seat on the dusty ground.  “Sorry, what?”

“This class, why are you taking it?” Melkor asked again with little more clarity.

“I think,” Mairon replied, keeping his voice calm to remove the hurt from the realization as he looked away, “I was signed up as a joke.  Is that a problem?  You’ve already been paid.  I’m learning things, after all.”

Melkor was silent for a moment, still staring at him with such an indiscernible expression on his face that Mairon felt his chest tighten with a bizarre fluttering sensation.  “No,” he finally said.  “It’s not a problem.  Don’t light any more fires.”   

xXx

Mairon stopped by the gate when his phone buzzed in his hand.  The other two students shouldered by him on the way to their car, talking in hushed whispers as they left after the first day.  He ignored them and looked at his phone.  It was a text from Curumo, and he frowned down at it.   _Another weird email_ , it said.  _Business account, not much info.  I’ll forward to you._  He was about to reply to ask which of their customers had sent it when a shadow broke over the phone, accompanied by a now-familiar voice.

“So what’re you doin’ here, really?”

Mairon glanced around to see Melkor leaning against the fence beside him, his large frame blocking the late afternoon sun as it set into brilliant oranges and reds in the sky.  He was grinning, almost cat-like, and Mairon’s frown deepened.  He lowered the phone, abandoning the text for the moment, and locked his screen from what he always assumed were others prying into his life.  “Learning,” he said tersely.  “We’ve established that.”  

But rather than take that at given value, Melkor just shrugged and moved to lean both elbows back against the highest plank of the fence, turning his face into the fleeting warmth of what was left of the sun.  “Sure you are,” he quipped, obviously not buying it.  “Are you a lawyer or something?”

“You think I’m a lawyer?” Mairon asked with a genuine bark of laughter breaking the words, his lips pulling into a smile that almost reached his eyes.  “Why?”

Melkor gestured vaguely toward his clothes.  “None of my students usually come out here into the dirt to literally start fires looking like... _that_ , wearing such fancy shit.  And your phone has been going off all day, it’s annoying.  So sorry if I am not entertaining enough for you.”

“I’m not a lawyer,” Mairon said, laughing again at the almost relieved droop of Melkor’s shoulders and not bothering to apologize for his phone.  He felt it buzz against his palm again, the email from Curumo, and only just stopped himself from immediately looking at it.  “Why,” he retorted back, keeping his voice light, “are you expecting a lawsuit or something?”

Melkor set him with a level gaze, his lips held tight in a line trying not to grin.  “Maybe.  I’ve had some disappointed students in the last few groups who have it out for me.”

Mairon hummed, nodding as he began to turn away and dig his keys out of his pocket.  His phone buzzed again.  Whatever modicum of insulation from life he’d had out here today had quite obviously vanished.  “Yes, I’ve read your reviews and saw that great performance, complete with real tears, this morning.  You’re not very popular, are you.  Great for last-minute reservations like mine.”

Melkor’s laugh, when it came, was booming and full of so much heart.  Mairon almost paused, wanting to turn around again to see...whatever he might see there, before his phone this time began to ring.

“Do you wanna get dinner?”

The question behind him was unexpected, and Mairon’s finger stopped over the ‘accept’ button, Curumo’s name lighting up the screen, anxious as his voice was sure to be over the line, and he actually did turn back around to see Melkor smiling widely at him.  The call ended abruptly, flashing as missed under his thumb.  “What,” he asked dumbly, “like, _now_?”

“Yeah, there’s - ”

The screen lit again almost immediately and cut off Melkor’s response as it vibrated insistently in Mairon’s hand.  Melkor’s lips curled in sly grin.

“I may be unpopular, yeah, but you seem to be quite the opposite.  Should I call you Mister Popular?  Would that be a good nickname for you?  Or is it a _girlfriend_?” he leered, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.  “Can you get me more friends if I hang out with you, Mister Popular?  Can you?  It’s a boring life, living alone out in the woods.  Come on, have dinner with me, Popular.”

Mairon frowned, staring down at his phone for a second before hitting ignore and watching the screen go black.  “Don’t call me that,” he demanded sharply when Melkor stared at him, apparently surprised the call hadn’t been answered.  “And it’s work, not anyone...else.”  

He typed out a distracted text to Curumo that he’d call later about the email and slipped his phone into his pocket.

xXx

The place Melkor had in mind for this dinner was a far leap from any kind of establishment Mairon would give patronage to on his own.  It was a rowdy bar, loud with sticky floors and too-dim lighting, but the lady behind the bar cried out a cheerful holler of greeting when she saw Melkor push through the door.  She shoved a drink at a grabby customer, sloshing some of it over the rim onto his hands, and reached for a clean glass.

“Where the hell have you been!”  She smiled widely as Melkor approached the bar and extended her arm for Melkor to clasp about the wrist in a friendly embrace for only a moment before withdrawing and shoving him back.  “You ass, we need your money around here.  Do you want your usual?  I can make space for you at your booth, kick the drunk out of it.”

“The usual, yes,” Melkor replied with a laugh.  “And, uh - ”  He shot a glance over his shoulder to where Mairon was hovering behind him awkwardly, not sure where to go, and asked, “Are you a vegetarian or something?”

“No?” Mairon answered, not sure exactly what he was responding to.  

But Melkor had already turned around again to the woman at the bar.  “Two of my usual, Thil, and there’s room for us down at the end there.”

“Us?”  She leaned to the side, suddenly realizing he hadn’t come in alone, and her eyes widened when they landed on Mairon.  He didn’t smile at her, but she didn’t seem to care as she brought her attention back to Melkor.  “Look at you, making friends.”

Melkor ignored her and gestured to several seats at the end of the bar.  “Thil and I have known each other for a while,” Melkor explained as they got settled.  “She owns this place.  Although,” he added, glancing around, “she’s also an attorney, I don’t know why she keeps this dump open when she could invest in her own firm.  Or move away from this hellhole, work in the city.”

Mairon nodded silently, starting to wonder why he had agreed to this.  It was not particularly crowded, but the hum of people was making him uncomfortable after being outside all day and he really should have gone back to work, started tearing open the festering mess waiting for him.  He set his phone on the dark wooden bar beside his keys, hitting the home button to light the screen.  No new notifications.  He needed to say something, he suddenly realized, and he blinked, looking up again.

“Why are _you_ still living here, then, if you think this place is such a pit of despair?”

Melkor laughed, that deep, booming laugh of before that sounded so very happy, and some of Mairon’s reservations dimmed.  

“Family,” was his simple reply.  “I have too many ties here to cut them that easily.”  There was silence between them for a moment before Melkor asked, “So tell me, Mairon, what do you do that requires a constant connection to your phone?  If you’re not a lawyer...are you an FBI agent, like in one of those TV shows?”

Mairon gave him a playful sneer and rolled his eyes, feeling something tug at his chest, the same peculiar little thing he had felt hours earlier in the bright sunlight filtered with smoke after Melkor told him to stay.  “Nothing quite so glamorous,” he muttered, nodding thanks as a young man brought over two beers.  Melkor’s _‘usual’_ , it would seem.  “I work with horses.”

“Work with horses,” Melkor repeated seriously, his tone flat.  “What - what does that even mean?  Are you in the circus or something?  Should I be concerned over your reasoning for wilderness training?”

Mairon could not help the inelegant snort that came from his nose at that, and he covered his mouth with his hand.  His heart.  _Oh_ .  Oh, dear.  That was the tugging in his chest.  The realization brought color to his cheeks, and he hid it quickly by turning his gaze away over his other shoulder for a moment.  “I mean,” he clarified, putting on a falsely dignified voice as he looked around again, “that I train horses.  I am not in the _circus_ , thank you.”  He choked back another burst of laughter.  “But that sounds like a lot of fun right now, I’ll admit.  Does Cirque du Soleil use horses, can I get a contract with them?  I’m tired of the Olympics.”

“Sure, right,” Melkor guffawed, his teeth flashing white in a brilliant smile, “the Olympics.  I bet that’s loads of fun, so much fun you’d leave it for the fucking _circus_.”  But Mairon’s own smile faltered slightly, just enough that Melkor caught it, and he paused with an unreadable expression.  “Wait, you were serious about that part?  You’ve been in the Olympics?”

“My horses have, I just trained them.”  He shrugged, giving a smaller grin as a peace offering.  “The equestrians themselves do most of the work.  Really, I only teach them.”

Melkor leaned back in his seat and let out a huffing breath before taking a sip of his beer.  Mairon watched him, suddenly unsure if he’d let too much out about himself.  He was surprised by the way his pulse sped at the thought of this odd little friendship disintegrating before it had even started, and he cupped his hands around his own cup.  

“You are an enigma, aren’t you,” he finally said, giving Mairon a glance from the corner of his eye.  “But I guess now I know how you can afford those clothes and that stupid car.”

“What is it with you and my possessions!” Mairon joked, and his breath came easier in that one moment as it passed.  “And seriously, my stupid Tesla is parked out there next to your Aston Martin, so don’t be throwing stones.  You might hit your own stupid car.”

“Family money,” Melkor replied airily.

Any further discussion just then was interrupted by the same waiter from before bringing out two plates of food.  Melkor was obviously expecting this rubbed his hands together excitedly, but Mairon was somewhat startled when one was slid in front of him.  The young man placed napkins and silverware between them on the bartop, slid over a bottle of ketchup, and left them to eat.

“Tuck in,” Melkor said, picking up a fork and using it to point at Mairon’s plate.  

It was just a hamburger with fries - the whole thing looked delicious, truly, and he hadn’t realized until then how hungry he was - but Mairon stared at the food for another few seconds before reaching for it.

“What’s wrong?” Melkor asked, stealing one of Mairon’s fries despite the full pile on his own plate.  “I didn’t ask if the order was okay, sorry, I just assumed.  Pretty standard fare here.  It’s really good, though, promise.  But if you don’t like it - ”

“No, it’s fine.  It’s just been a long time since I’ve eaten with someone, I guess.”  He offered up another grin and picked up a knife to cut the burger in half.

“That is _particularly_ pathetic, do you know that?  So now - ”

Mairon’s phone rang, the vibrations loud and jarring against the wooden top of the bar.  Melkor stared at the phone, another odd expression clouding his face, and Mairon wiped his hands on a napkin before picking it up to check the screen.  It was Aulë this time.  The lighthearted mood of the evening vanished in an instant.  “Sorry,” he muttered, not paying as much attention to his companion as his thoughts spun out in various directions.  “I need to take this one.”

It almost looked as though Melkor was going to say something to intervene, but Mairon was already answering the call before it could go to voicemail.  “Yeah?”

“Mairon, have you - where are you?  What’s all that noise?”

Mairon glanced up at Melkor, meeting his eyes and looking away again.  That flutter in his chest sputtered up again as he felt those blue eyes linger on his face, studying him, and he dug the nails of his free hand against the smooth surface of the bartop to trace the woodgrains.  “I’m out.  What’s going on?  Are the horses okay?”

“The horses are all fine,” Aulë assured him quickly, but he sighed, an aggrieved sound over the tinny connection that made Mairon anxious.  “Have you spoken to Curumo?”

Mairon shook his head, following up with a verbal answer.  “No.  He’s been texting about some more emails I’ll read later, but I haven’t gotten on the phone with him yet.  Why?”

“You should come in.  There’s something going on we need get on top of.”

“Sure, fine, I can be there in an hour.”

“No, Mairon.”  Aulë let out a long breath, and Mairon could almost see him running a hand over his face.  “You should come now.  We might have a serious problem.  Manwë is threatening to take his business elsewhere.  I can explain more when you get here.”

Mairon sat straight in the chair with a sharp zing of panic, everything else forgotten.  “What?”

“I can tell you when - ”

“No, tell me now!”  He was already pushing his stool back, scraping it across the floor as he grabbed for his keys and argued for another fleeting second with Aulë.  He dug money out of his wallet and slid it hastily toward Melkor, who was staring at him with wide-eyed disappointment Mairon barely registered.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, stepping away as he did, “I need to go.  Thank you.  I - I’ll see you tomorrow.”


	2. Chapter 2

It was far worse than he had thought, once Aulë gave him what information he had.  A competitor was feeding lies to his clients, likely with the hope of stealing their business.  They were terrible lies, too, and Mairon leaned against the wall in his horse’s stall with a vacant expression on his face the next morning.  He had experienced similar tactics from competitors in the past, especially when he was just starting to get his name around the circuit, but this…

He sighed heavily and pushed off the wall, curry comb already in hand as he reached out.  The horse leaned into the touch, his ribs moving as he took a deep, contented inhale and let it go.  Mairon smiled gently.  “You know this person is a liar, too, don’t you?” he cooed softly.  “And I bet we know who it is, of course we do.”  He scowled, moving the brush methodically over the animal’s black coat and wondering vaguely what he had rolled in to be so coated in mud this early in the morning.  

But memories of the previous night’s discussion still came tumbling back, and he bowed his head against the horse’s neck, his hand stilling somewhat.  “Abuse, why would someone say that?  I would never...”  

Tears stung his eyes and he shut them tightly.  His horse shuffled a bit, turning his head to snuff comfortingly at his shoulder.  Mairon give him a watery grin, reaching over to rub his soft nose.  “But okay, the stealing, _that_ we’ll have to look into, you’re right.”

“Already agreeing with me and I didn’t even have to say anything.”

Mairon jumped at the familiar laugh, heart leaping with a spike of adrenaline and dropping the comb into the pile of straw under his feet.  He hastily rubbed his cheeks with the heel of one hand, somewhat surprised to find they were dry.  He pushed on the horse’s shoulder and the animal sidestepped just enough to reveal Melkor on his other side outside the stall.  Mairon stared at him, stunned.

“What are you doing here?”

Melkor shrugged, looking around at the spacious barn and studying various pieces of tack hanging by the stall.  “You didn’t come to the class this morning.”

“And so you left the other people there without an instructor?”

Melkor stepped forward to rest his elbows against the stall door, leaning forward casually.  “None of them came, either, but I was expecting that much.  People usually don’t show again after the first day.  Bad teacher, remember?  But you,” he murmured, tilting his head to the side as he gazed at Mairon across the way, “ _you_ I expected to show up.  It would have been fun.”

Mairon dropped his stare, looking down through the straw for the comb.  That fluttering, that damned fluttering he wished would go away, was leaping against his throat and he grew irritated with himself for even entertaining the thought.  “There was an emergency last night.  It...was a bit larger than I thought.  Sorry.”

Melkor didn’t respond to that and Mairon knelt to grab the comb.  He shook it off and tossed it into the old feed bucket he used now for the assortment of brushes he brought to groom his horse.  “How did you even find me?” he asked after a moment.

“I googled you,” Melkor admitted without hesitation or embarrassment.  “And then some guy in the office told me you were out here.”

Mairon just nodded with this information, absorbing it without hearing very much.  His gaze grew distant again, body stilling, as his thoughts flew off across various threads.

“Dude, are you okay?”

He looked up to see Melkor watching him with genuine concern, his blue eyes narrowed.  Mairon felt himself drawn forward, falling and unable to stop himself, when the sound of hurried footsteps interrupted whatever he might have thought to say.  Curumo edged in beside Melkor, glancing at him long enough to give a polite nod before looking at Mairon again with all of his attention.

Mairon came around the horse, who was happy to munch on hay left in the hanging basket, and stopped on the other side of the door from the both.  “Well?”

“Manwë is here,” he said breathlessly, continuing immediately before Mairon could say anything, “but Aulë says for you to stay away from the meeting, that he’ll fix it.  Okay?”

“But I should be there.  This is my business, Curumo, it’s my _name_ \- ”

“Manwë doesn’t like you very much, remember?” Curumo interjected calmly, touching Mairon’s arm in what was clearly supposed to be a supportive manner but instead felt far too restrictive given the circumstances.  “Manwë and Aulë are friends, he’ll figure it all out.  Everything will be fine.”

Curumo lowered his hand and stepped back, already turning around to leave, and Mairon called after him, “Try to find out who’s spreading this, yeah?”

“Already on it!”

And then he was gone, jogging back to the main house.  Mairon felt deflated, his stomach churning, and he spun slowly to lean back against the halfwall on the side of the stall.  Melkor was still there, unusually silent, and he sent the other man a brief glance.  “I told you, an emergency.  I wasn’t lying.”

But Melkor just stared at him, his expression one of confused consideration.  “Manwë?”

“One of our clients,” he explained dismissively.  “Those horses down there - ” he gestured to an entire wing of the large barn, “they’re all his and his wife’s, I work with them for eventing, dressage, hunts.  What?”  Melkor looked thoughtful, his gaze roaming from the empty stalls back to Mairon with a strange lilt to his lips.  “Oh my _god_ , what is wrong with you?  Just...I don’t have the patience for this.”

Melkor started to chuckle, the sound rumbling in his chest.  “Manwë,” he said again, and Mairon scowled so deeply at having to hear the name yet another time that creases formed between his eyebrows.  “Manwë is my brother.”

“Okay, that’s not funny,” Mairon snapped, truly unhappy.  He left the wall and grabbed another brush, clucking his tongue to get the horse’s attention.  The animal came without hesitation, happy to be doted upon as Mairon turned away from Melkor’s pout.

“What kind of horse is this?” Melkor asked suddenly.  “He’s fucking huge.”

The question took Mairon off guard just enough to answer, and he did with only a small bit of grumbling.  “Friesian.”

“What’s his name?”

“Blue.”

“That’s a weird name,” Melkor said with a soft chuckle, but Mairon didn’t rise to the bait this time.  Instead of prodding with more jokes, Melkor asked another question.  “Whose is he?”

“Mine.”  

Mairon turned back abruptly, irritated and ready to demand to be left alone, but Melkor was grinning at him with such a kind face, such an open and honest expression, that the words would not come.  Instead, regardless of what his brain thought should happen, that fluttering against his ribcage started back up again full force.  He just sighed, resigned, and gave a full answer.  “I used to compete with him, a long time ago.  Eventing.  But he’s getting a little too old now, and I don’t have time for my own competitions.  He’s my only horse, all the others here belong to other people.  I train most of them, though some just board.”

Melkor nodded, accepting this without any kind of comeback.  But then - “Manwë really is my brother.”

Mairon scoffed, the pleasant feeling in his chest souring almost instantly.  “What is your goddam _point_ with that?  Come on.”

“No, I mean…”  Melkor paused and stood up straight, actually looking serious as he sought what to say, and Mairon regarded him cautiously.  “I mean, is there anything I can do to help?”

He waited only a moment before shrugging tentatively.  “I don’t know.  Maybe.”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

Mairon bit his lip, his grasp on the brush loosening as options ran through his head.  His horse shifted his weight to lean heavily against him, sensing his distress, and Mairon pushed him back with a little murmuring of admonishment.  “Okay,” he relented, raising his head and meeting Melkor’s gaze again.  “We started getting emails a few days ago, clients wanting to cancel our services.  Which is normal in business; win some, lose some.  But we don’t usually lose so much in such a short time, right?”  He swallowed, feeling those traitorous tears from earlier threaten, but they didn’t push forward.  “Some people mentioned moving elsewhere, to the same guy.  I know him.  Kind of, anyway.  We’ve met in passing.”

“Has this guy gotten horses to the Olympics?”  Melkor said this with a compassionate kind of chuckle, and Mairon’s smile in return was almost involuntary.  

“No.”  

Melkor just gave a derisive bark of laughter with this blunt response and gestured for Mairon to continue.  Mairon sighed, gathering his thoughts back together, and said, “Manwë - your _brother_ Manwë, really? - was the only one to tell us this guy has been spreading rumors about me to our clients with the intent of poaching.”

“What rumors?” Melkor prodded gently.

“That…”  His voice faded off, throat clenching with the words so close, and he forced them out.  “That I hurt the animals under my care, feed them poisons and stimulants to drive their growth, horrible things like that.  Falsities and lies that will ruin my career.”  He turned back to Blue, bracing both hands against his steady shoulder, felt the strong muscle under his soft black coat.  “Your brother,” he continued after a moment when Melkor didn’t say anything, “is here to break his contract with us, to leave and bring his business to this other person, the one spreading the lies.  If he leaves, more than two thirds of my clients will go with him.”

The silence spread, and Mairon finally looked up to find Melkor, as had become usual, watching him closely.

Finally, Melkor asked, “You know who this person is?”  Mairon nodded.  “And they’re all lies, what’s being said about you?”

“Well, one thing we’re actually looking into - an employee might be stealing money from us and our clients, we’ve already started investigating the allegations.  But the rest is all false, yes.”

Melkor stared at him for a long moment.  The silence stretched around them, broken only by the sounds of the barn and the shuffling of horses and then, with a baffling kind of cheerfulness, he gave Mairon a sly grin.  “So what are you standing around here for?”

“I…”

Mairon started to shake his head, confused, but Melkor continued before he could say anything.  “You know who this guy is, you know what he’s doing, what he’s talking behind your back.  Right?  So go punch his lights out.”  Melkor unlatched the stall and stood back, leaving plenty of space for Mairon to walk past him into the hall.  He lifted an eyebrow suggestively.  “You know you want to,” he added in a low, tempting voice.   

Anger surged up in his chest, anger he had been doing so well to keep tempered by irritation and such bitter disappointment.  He threw the brush he hadn’t even used back into the bucket, already moving around his horse to the open door.  Melkor gave a surprised whoop, and Mairon spun to face him.  “You,” he said, poking a finger into his broad chest, “are a bad influence.”

But Melkor merely laughed, grabbing the finger and then enveloping Mairon’s entire hand into his own.  Mairon glanced down at the touch, startled, and started to take a step back, though Melkor held just enough to keep him in place, that grin still tugging at his mouth.

“And you…” he started to retort.  The rest died away into silence again, and Mairon met his eyes, intrigued despite himself when that flutter he tried _so hard_ to ignore returned.  “You…”

Whatever Melkor was going to say was given over to a huff of a sigh before he abruptly leaned down press their lips together.  There was no preamble, nothing to give any warning, and all Mairon did was stand there, quite stunned at the feeling of a warm mouth suddenly slotted so perfectly against his own, fingers sliding gently back along his jaw, into his hair.  He found his limbs frozen for that brief moment as it passed so fleetingly between them before they parted and Melkor released him completely.  

“I think you were headed somewhere?”

Mairon blinked as the soft words parsed into his mind, torrented with so much information it was overloading, and refocused to see Melkor still staring at him with a terribly amused expression.  His ears burned, thankfully covered by the wrap of his hair into its braid, and he schooled his face into neutrality as he stepped back, then turned to walk away without another word.  Such _brashness_ , the _nerve_.  How he _dared_ -

And yet...

He had barely had the chance to reach the barn door with his tumbling thoughts when Melkor called his name.  Mairon turned, only vaguely imagining he should hesitate and reassess this entire situation with a very firm _fuck no_.  But before those words could take any kind of form, something shiny was being hurtled toward him.  His hand shot up, grabbing it before the object could hit his face.  Car keys.  He stared at them, baffled.

“Take my car,” Melkor offered blithely, an amused smile lighting his face.  Blue poked his head over the door of his stall to watch, and Mairon glared at them both.

“What?  _Why_?”

Mairon made to toss the keys back, but Melkor shook his head.  “Mine is faster than your electric piece of crap.  Besides, you’ll have more fun.”  Mairon started to interrupt, indignation already hot on his tongue at such an obvious barb, but Melkor spoke over him.  “Papers are in the little compartment thing but really, don’t get pulled over, the cops have it out for me.  But _if you do_ \- I’ve got a good lawyer, she can get you out of anything.  You met her last night.”

He flashed Mairon another of those huge smiles and, hesitating only a second to feel the flutter against his throat once again, Mairon finally stopped doubting this one small - huge - thing in the whirlwind of a disastrous day.

xXx

(He did _not_ , as it turned out, punch Fëanor in the face.  He did, however, intimidate his oldest kid into backing his father down.  Just a bit.  

Enough to avoid bloodshed, at any rate.

Perhaps not so surprisingly, it did all have to do with Tyelpe after all.)

xXx

Melkor watched Mairon sprint away, turning the corner around the door of the barn and out into the morning sunshine, before sticking his hands into his pockets meandering after him at a much slower pace.  The horse, still closed in the stall behind him, snorted loudly, and Melkor jerked, shooting a suspicious look over his shoulder.

The main house was a short walk away from the overly huge (in Melkor’s opinion, there were far too many horses) barn, and he shoved the front door open.  A skinny young man with brown hair and a smattering of freckles jumped at the sudden noise and looked up from a filing cabinet in the office, irritated.  Melkor recognized him, and he sent his mind back quickly for the necessary information.  He was the one who had directed him out to the barn earlier in search of Mairon, and the same guy who had come to speak with Mairon not long after that...Curumo, Mairon had called him.

Melkor gave Curumo a huge, toothy smile.  “Hi, hello.  Where can I find Manwë?”

“You’re the guy who was outside with Mai earlier,” Curumo said warily, shooting him a doubtful glance and taking several steps back for every one forward Melkor took.  “That meeting is private.  You should probably leave.”

There was a set of frosted glass doors to the left, beyond which could be heard the soft murmuring of discussion, and Melkor pointed.  “Is he in here?”  

He didn’t wait for an answer before opening this door and going inside.  Curumo scrambled around the desk, dropping the papers he’d been holding in his frantic haste to reach him before chaos exploded, but his attempts fell just a little short of their mark.

Manwë and Aulë glanced up from the conference table, just as surprised as Curumo had been at the interruption.  There were papers and files spread between them, both of their expressions grim.  Manwë’s lost its angered edge when he saw Melkor standing in the doorway, turning to look utterly bewildered.

Aulë leapt from his chair, aiming to assist Curumo remove Melkor from the room when all he saw was a trespassing stranger, but Manwë shook his head.  “What on earth...what are you…?”

Melkor shrugged one shoulder and they both looked at one another, chuckling in an awkward sort of way.  “I was already here.  I kind of heard someone say your name.”  He gestured vaguely at the papers without much of an idea what he was pointing to, but doing so anyway.  “You know all this shit isn’t true, right.  It’s just a competitor talking bullshit.”

Aulë and Curumo gaped at each other behind Melkor’s back and he paid no attention to either of them, more so when Aulë attempted to interject into the conversation with an indignant guffaw.  

“How could you possibly -”

But it was Manwë who interrupted Aulë first, still staring at Melkor intently.  His gaze turned pensive.  “It’s Mairon, then, isn’t it?” he asked lightly, almost smiling.  Melkor already knew what was coming by that question, and he dropped heavily into one of the conference chairs.  It squeaked under his sudden weight.

“Come on, Manwë, just spit it out if you want to know so badly.”  Melkor steepled his fingers and held them up to his mouth, grinning slyly.  “I’ll be _honest_ , I _promise_.”

Manwë sat in a chair one over, not breaking his gaze, and raised an eyebrow at the challenge.  “Are you sleeping with him?” he asked.  

The choked sound of shock did not come from either of them, but from Curumo, who slapped his hand over his gaping mouth at the blunt question.  Melkor just snorted derisively and rolled his eyes as Manwë continued with, “Is that why you’re here?  Is that why you suddenly care about this particular venture?  If you’re being honest, after all.”

“So indelicate for such innocent ears,” Melkor chided, not having to turn to see Curumo behind him was turning a deep shade of red.  It gave him a great sense of amusement and he had to keep from laughing to spoil the mood he was setting.  “And no, do you really think so lowly of me?  I only met him yesterday by complete chance.  I had no idea you were involved anywhere in this mess until very, very recently.”  

Manwë made an irritated sound at that Melkor ignored, choosing to go the route of more annoyance instead.  It was far too much fun.  “In fact, we concluded our first date - ”  He broke off to take a dramatic peek at his wristwatch, “eight minutes ago.  With a sixteen hour intermission between an unfortunately short dinner and my appearance here, if it means anything even more scandalous to you.”

There was silence for several seconds, the two brothers staring at one one another, before Manwë looked away with a growing smile breaking through the incredulous tension holding his shoulders back.  He shook his head, relaxing a little.  “How do you always…”  He glanced back, chuckling.  “The allegations are not true?”

“No, absolutely not,” Aulë swiftly promised at the same time Melkor said, “they’re all bullshit.”

Manwë got to his feet again and held his hand out to Aulë.  “I’m glad to hear it.  Let Mairon know my wife will be by for her regular appointment on Saturday.  And Melkor,” he added, “we’ll see you for dinner at Dad’s tomorrow.”

“What, Mairon doesn’t get an apology?  You’re so rude.”  The chair made an alarming groan as Melkor leaned back in it to put a foot on the edge of the table.

“Bring your new boyfriend,” Manwë continued without acknowledgement to the intentional prodding as he gathered his things to leave.  “Father should have the chance to dislike him just as much as I do.”

Curumo choked again and left the room.

xXx

_(maybe, possibly) a few years later_

“Dinner, Melkor, really?"

“Relax,” Melkor murmured, reaching out to smooth the lapels of Mairon’s suit jacket just outside the restaurant.  It was a needless gesture, truly; the suit was so well-pressed it looked better than his.  He smiled crookedly.  “It’s a formality.  Or actually,” he corrected himself, “a good ol’ fuck you to my dad for ever doubting me.   _Us_.  Whatever.  How many of your horses were in the Olympics this year?  How many of those equestrians did you train?”

Mairon didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to, not really.  Instead he said, “Look at you, pronouncing ‘equestrians’ correctly.  I’m so proud.”

“I hate you.”

“Yes, I hate you too.  Are we still going camping this weekend?”

Melkor looped their elbows together, tugging him forward when Mairon began to lag behind with reluctance.  “Just make sure you don’t set anything on fire.  Except this dinner.  You can set this dinner on fire.”

Mairon just laughed.  That stupid fluttering was still there, every time those stupid blue eyes swept over him, but now it didn’t seem like such a bad thing.  



End file.
